Abstract
332 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Thomas A. Edison Papers. A Selective Microfilm Edition: Part II (1879— 1886). Edited by Thomas E. Jeffrey. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America (44 North Market Street 21701), 1987. $3,900; Guide only, $35. Part II of the selective microfilm edition of the Thomas A. Edison Papers continues the professional editing, attention to detail, and scholarship evident in Part I (for an overall view of the Thomas A. Edison Papers and a review of Part I, see Technology and Culture 28 [1987]: 126-29). This part covers the period between 1879, when Edison began serious work on the incandescent lamp, and 1886, when he moved to Glenmont, near West Orange, New Jersey, with his second wife, Mina Miller. During these years, Edison established some of his most successful business ventures. The microfilm documents trace the development of the first commercially practical incandescent lighting system; included are the details of industrial research, manufacturing, financing, the establishment of Edison illuminating companies in the United States, and the promotion of the Edison system in Europe, Asia, and South America. Part II contains some 100,000 pages of documents which repre sent 50 percent of the materials for this period at the Edison National Historic Site. Organization, as in Part I, is based on eleven series that parallel the record groups within the Edison archives. The materials provide a wealth of information for the historian of technology. The Notebook, Document File, Company Record, Legal, and Account Series provide primary sources for a study of the establishment of electrical manufacturing and utilities in the late 19th century. The Notebook, Patent, and Scrapbook Series contain detailed technical and scientific information about the process of invention, innovation, and research that marked the new scientific approach to technology. The Letterbook and other series contain correspondence with such notable figures as Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Bessemer, William Crookes, John Ambrose Fleming, Jay Gould, Elisha Gray, Hermann von Helmholtz, Fleeming Jenkin, Albert A. Michelson, Samuel F. B. Morse, Henry Rowland, Elihu Thomson, William Thomson, Robert Thurston, Werner von Sie mens, and Frank Sprague. The Special Collections Series contains three particularly interest ing sets of materials, including Thomas A. Edison’s Diary of 1885; the Charles Batchelor Collection, 1871-1909; and the Francis R. Upton Collection, 1878—1918. Edison’s Diary, the only known diary kept by him, contains fascinating discussions of his readings of Goethe, Rousseau, Twain, and others, his thoughts on Darwin, his specula tions on using electricity to artificially hatch chicken eggs, his thoughts on religion, and notes on his dreams. The collections of Batchelor and Upton, two of Edison’s closest associates, contain much material on TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 333 their personal lives, their work with Edison, and their correspondence with a number of important figures. The Upton Collection also contains the class notes Upton took while a student of von Helmholtz. Both of these later collections contain materials that fall outside the chronology of Part II, but selections from all years were filmed to preserve the integrity of each collection. The microfilms contain editorial aids, called targets, that introduce each series, subseries, volume, and folder, and provide cross refer ences to related materials. Of particular value, the targets give information on material that was not selected for filming, thus providing scholars with access to the entire Edison archives. A few of the microfilms are difficult to read, especially in the Letterbook Series, but this is to be expected given the difficulty in reading even original 19th-century letterbooks. The printed guide contains an essay on the editorial procedures, notes on each series in the collection, an Index to Authors and Recipients, an Index to Financial Documents, and a Chronological Index to Technical Notes and Drawings. This last index is especially useful since the Edison Papers present the historian of technology with a particularly rich source for the study of the role of nonverbal thinking in technological development. The scholarly community has reason to be grateful for the Edison Papers project and to look forward to the publication of the rest of the microfilm edition. David F. Channell Dr. Channell is associate professor of historical studies at the University...
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